Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) was developed to allow users on the Internet to easily navigate from within one file to another file, the other file possibly residing on another computer hundreds or thousands of miles away. A user selects, loads and displays HTML files utilizing software called a browser.
An HTML file is located at an address represented by a Universal Resource Locator (URL), and may reside on a user's own computer, or on another computer networked with the user's computer. In particular, the HTML file may reside on a networked computer with an Internet address, called a host. A logical grouping of HTML files on a given host is known as a website. All websites taken together constitute the World Wide Web (WWW).
HTML files displayed by a browser generally contain areas that, when selected by a user, cause the browser to load and display other HTML files. A selectable area (known as a link) may be textual, graphic, or generally any designated area of a displayed HTML file. Each link is associated with a URL of a destination HTML file, which is loaded and displayed when the link is selected by the user.
Almost every website HTML file contains links to other files, many of which reside at different websites. Practically any number of files across numerous hosts may be retrieved without repetition merely by continuing to select interesting links from one website to another. The Internet may thus be explored opportunistically, in a practice known in the art as "surfing." However, the size and richness of the Internet makes it unlikely that a user could find the same website again without assistance. Thus, if a user finds an interesting website HTML file worth revisiting, the user needs a convenient, easy and effective way of storing the address, retrieving the address, associating the address with the content of the website or website file, and loading and displaying the HTML file at the address.
Committing to memory the URL of a favorite site is often difficult, and recording or storing the URL alone is generally insufficient because the URL is generally not suggestive of the content of a website. For example, the URL for a website file at which a user may shop for books is http:.backslash..backslash.www.amazon.com.backslash.exec.backslash.obidos. backslash.subst.backslash.index2.html.backslash.21-802700409-30065. This is almost impossible to remember, is tedious to enter directly, and is hardly suggestive of a bookseller.
A partial solution to this problem has been to associate a brief, easy to remember textual description with the underlying URL. This textual description is embedded in the HTML file between TITLE headers. In the case of the bookseller, the HTML file at the URL given above contains the line &lt;TITLE&gt;Amazon.com Books| Earth's Biggest Bookstore.&lt;.backslash.TITLE&gt;. At the user's request, the browser associates the URL with the TITLE information of a presently displayed HTML file and stores this data as a bookmark. The bookmark is stored in a bookmark file, which is usually resident on the user's computer. At the user's request, a list of the textual descriptions in the bookmark file is displayed as a bookmark list. Upon selecting one such description, the browser loads and displays the HTML file found at the associated URL. In this way, the user may remember and return to previously visited websites whose address the user asked the browser to remember.
Although the use of textual TITLE information is generally more suggestive of the content of an HTML file than the file's URL, such information can be confusing and incomplete. For example, the TITLE information to be used as a bookmark for the Website at http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com.backslash.business.backslash.gsds.b ackslash.index.html is "AT&T GSDS." This conveys the information that the site is affiliated with AT&T, but its content remains obscured behind a potentially unfamiliar acronym (the site actually provides information relating to AT&T Global Switched Digital Services.)
Likewise, some TITLE data is too long to be displayed textually in its entirety and has to be truncated. This may produce a textual bookmark of little value to the user. For example, the bookmark for one HTML file is displayed on one Browser as "U.S. House of Represe . . . lations (searchable)." This conveys little useful information about the content of the file because it is too long, and had to be truncated by the browser.
FIG. 1 depicts a prior art embodiment of the bookmark feature as implemented in the Netscape 2.0 Browser developed by Netscape Communications, Inc. In order to store a bookmark for the presently displayed HTML file, the user utilizes his mouse to position the cursor over the word Bookmarks 11 in the title bar 12. Upon clicking the left mouse button, the bookmarks window 13 appears. The user then places the cursor over the words Add Bookmark 14 in the bookmarks window 13, clicks the left mouse button. The browser scans the HTML file for TITLE information, which is embedded in the HTML file between TITLE headers as follows:
&lt;TITLE&gt;Internet Society Home Page&lt;.backslash.TITLE&gt; PA1 &lt;TITLE&gt; PA1 &lt;IMG SRC="http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com.backslash.images.backslash.att logo.gif"&gt; PA1 &lt;.backslash.TITLE&gt; PA1 &lt;IMG SRC="http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com.backslash.images.backslash.att logo.gif"&gt;
When the user directs the browser to save a bookmark, the browser adds "Internet Society Home Page"; 15 to the bookmarks window 13 and associates this TITLE information with the URL specifying the location of the HTML page. In the present example, the bookmark could be represented as the ordered pair, ("Internet Society Home Page", http:.backslash..backslash.www.isoc.org). This is stored in a bookmark file.
FIG. 2 depicts another prior art embodiment of the bookmarks window 21 in the Netscape 2.0 Browser. Bookmarks window 21 displays bookmarks that are stored after the bookmarks window 13 of FIG. 1 is full. The bookmarks are added one at a time in a manner identical to that described above for FIG. 1. It should also be noted that the text between the TITLE headers of a page is used to present a descriptive title 22 to the user when the page is displayed. Thus, the "Welcome to Texaco" page at http:.backslash..backslash.www.texaco.com.backslash. displayed in FIG. 2 comprises the HTML code:
&lt;TITLE&gt;Welcome to Texaco Online&lt;.backslash.TITLE&gt;
In other words, the same text used for the page's bookmark in the bookmarks window 21 is used as the descriptive title 22 displayed at the top of the page when the page is displayed to the user.
FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of a bookmarks list as implemented by the NetCruiser browser developed by Netcom, Inc. In order to store a bookmark for the presently displayed HTML file, a user selects the "open book" graphic 30 on the control bar 31. The bookmarks window 32 appears, and the user selects the Add button 33. The TITLE 34 of the presently displayed HTML file is then added to the bookmarks window 32. As with the Netscape browser, the URL of the HTML file is associated with the TITLE information and is stored in a bookmark file.
To retrieve an HTML file whose TITLE is listed in the bookmarks list in FIG. 1, the user again selects the word Bookmarks 11 in the title bar 12 of the browser. The user then selects the TITLE 15 of the HTML page sought to be loaded, whereupon the bookmarks window 13 disappears and the HTML file is loaded and displayed. The file may be loaded from a cache, or downloaded over a network from another computer or a host.
FIG. 3a shows another known method of storing bookmarks. The user first accesses the Options menu 101 to specify a bookmarks HTML file that the browser is to load automatically when the browser is first activated by the user and when the user requests his bookmarks. The browser designates this user bookmark file as the user bookmark page. An example of such a page 39 is shown in FIG. 3a. The page 39 appears with a header 35 that include's the user's name, and the user bookmark file name 36 (gary.htm) of the page 39 is displayed.
The author of a page can cause an image to be downloaded as a bookmark when a user with a bookmark page saves the author's page as a bookmark. This is carried out by replacing the descriptive text between the TITLE headers of an HTML file with an image source header. For example:
This is disadvantageous because when a bookmark is saved for such a page by a user without a bookmark page, it is the cryptic text between the TITLE headers that is stored in the user's bookmark list 13 (FIG. 1). In other words, the text:
would appear in the user's bookmark list instead of the text "ATT's Home Page."
Another disadvantage of replacing descriptive text between TITLE headers with an IMG SRC header is that the cryptic, non-descriptive IMG SRC header will appear as the title of the page (in the position of title 22 of FIG. 2), rather than a descriptive line of text. Thus, a user is not shown the intended topic of a displayed page, and must derive its relevance as best he can from the content of the page itself.
Once the author replaces the descriptive text between the TITLE headers with the IMG SRC header, the user loads and displays the page and selects Bookmarks 11 in the title bar 12 of FIG. 1. The user then selects Add Bookmark 14, whereupon the text "http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com.backslash.images.backslash.attlogo .gif" is added as a line of text to the bookmarks window 13, as discussed above, which then disappears. The URL "http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com" is associated with this bookmark and is stored invisibly.
Next, the user again selects Bookmarks 11, and selects Go To Bookmarks 16. The user then saves the bookmarks file to the user bookmark file, for example, to gary.htm.
When the user displays his user bookmark page 39 (FIG. 3a), the browser contacts the computer at http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com and downloads the image 37 stored at the address between the title headers. This image 37 is then displayed on the user bookmark page 39. For example, when the user displays the file gary.htm, the browser downloads the image attlogo.gif 37 (FIG. 3a) from the computer at the address http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com. As previously mentioned, this image is associated with the URL of the page from which it was stored, i.e., the page on which the image source appeared between TITLE headers. When the image 37 is selected, the page with the associated URL is loaded and displayed. Thus, when the user selects the AT&T logo 37, the page at "http:.backslash..backslash.www.att.com.backslash." is loaded and displayed to the user. When selected, the other two graphics 38 cause the browser to load and display the pages at their respective associated URLs.
This system is disadvantageous because it is complex, requires many steps, and fails to store the image it downloads as a bookmark in a way that it can be easily and readily accessed from browser session to browser session. Rather, it only stores the image source address and associated URL of each graphic bookmark from session to session. Thus, each time the user starts his browser, the browser must seek out each and every server with a page containing an image bookmark, and then download the graphic so that it can be displayed on the user's bookmark page. This is a slow, tedious process that can fail when images are unavailable because of failed links or broken servers.
This system is also disadvantageous because the text displayed in a the bookmarks window is only a cryptic image source address, lending no description of the bookmarked page. Finally, this system can only store bookmarks as static graphic images or text.
A better, more convenient way of storing and presenting bookmarks comprising at least one of textual, graphic, animation, video and audio media would be simple, being no more complex than the present system of adding a textual bookmark. It would preserve the ability to retain descriptive information for the title of a displayed page. The multimedia bookmarks would be stored from browser session to browser session on the user's computer, and would not have to be loaded from other computers through a network each time the user starts his browser or requests his bookmarks.